Heretofore for production of copper radionuclide (hereinafter this may be referred to as radioactive copper) such as Cu-60, Cu-61, Cu-62, Cu-64, Cu-67 and others, there is known a method comprising irradiating a nickel target of a stable nickel isotope with proton, deuteron or alpha-particle beams to produce radioactive copper thereby chemically separating/purifying the radioactive copper contained in the nickel target (see Patent Reference 1, Non-Patent Reference 1). For example, Non-Patent Reference 1 reports a method of dissolving an irradiated 64Ni target in concentrated hydrochloric acid followed by leading the resulting solution to pass through an anion exchange resin to separate radioactive copper. Non-Patent Reference 2 proposes a Cu-64 production apparatus using the method of Non-Patent Reference 1, in which production of Cu-64 within 3 hours is reported.
Irradiation of a 64Ni target with proton beams produces radioactive copper and, as by-products, cobalt radionuclides (hereinafter this may be referred to as radioactive cobalt) such as Co-55, Co-56, Co-57, Co-58, etc. Accordingly, for obtaining the intended radioactive copper at high purity, nickel and cobalt radionuclides must be removed. Non-Patent Reference 3 reports, as a modification of the method of Non-Patent Reference 1, a method of separating radioactive copper by dissolving an irradiated 64Ni target in an ethanol solution containing 0.3 mol/L of hydrochloric acid followed by leading the resulting solution to pass through an anion exchange resin.    [Patent Reference 1] JP-T 2007-512118    [Non-Patent Reference 1] D. W. McCarthy et al., Nucl. Med. Biol., 24, 35-43 (1997)    [Non-Patent Reference 2] A. Obata et al., Nucl. Med. Biol., 30, 535-539 (2003)    [Non-Patent Reference 3] X. Hou et al., Appl. Radiat. Isot., 57, 773-777 (2002)